PatternIQ Mining (PIQM) welcomes complaints and appeals as a way to improve the journal, and handles them following the relevant COPE guidance.
Appeals against editorial decisions
Authors may appeal a decision when they believe it rests on a factual error, on a misunderstanding of the manuscript or on bias. Disagreement with a reviewer's opinion is not, on its own, a ground for appeal.
- Send the appeal to editor.piqm@gmail.com within 30 days of the decision, giving the manuscript number and title.
- Explain the grounds for the appeal and respond point by point to the comments of the reviewers and the editor.
- The appeal is considered by the Editor-in-Chief or, where the Editor-in-Chief made the original decision, by an editor who was not involved in it. Further reviewers may be consulted.
- The authors are told the outcome and the reasons for it. The decision on an appeal is final.
Complaints
Complaints may concern, for example:
- the handling of a manuscript or delays in the process;
- the conduct of an editor, a reviewer or a member of staff;
- publication ethics, authorship or conflicts of interest;
- the content of a published article.
Send complaints to editor.piqm@gmail.com with enough detail for them to be examined. The journal aims to acknowledge a complaint within seven days and to give a full response within 30 days. If more time is needed, the complainant is told why.
A complaint about the Editor-in-Chief is passed to the publisher, Sahara Digital Publications (tosaharadigitals@gmail.com), which handles it independently of the Editor-in-Chief.
If you are not satisfied
A complainant who is not satisfied with the response may ask the publisher to review how the complaint was handled.
Concerns about errors or misconduct in a published article are handled under the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement and the policy on Corrections and Retractions.